The macroeconomic effects of fiscal decentralization reforms in Kazakhstan: Evidence from regional data

Since the beginning of the administrative and territorial reform in Ukraine, the financial decentralization process has been intensified. It aims at optimizing the budgetary resource redistribution in order to make communities financially independent. This significantly increases the financial capacity for self-organization and self-development of a united territorial community, which determines the need to apply valuation methods to increase the territory’s investment attractiveness.
The article outlines the peculiarities of the united territorial communities (UTCs) management under fiscal decentralization, taking into account the need to apply current methods of value-oriented management. At the same time, the use of SWOT analysis as one of the methods of value-oriented management made it possible to evaluate the efficiency and attractiveness of UTCs under decentralization. The financial activity of 665 UTCs was analyzed and the model for managing the united territorial community was created. It is emphasized that the modern understanding of financial support for united territorial communities remains unresolved today, and the expediency to introduce changes in the UTC, which envisage using the subsidiarity principles, is not justified.
The key directions for managing the UTCs are identified. This refers to communities that began their activities and already faced the first challenges: management of available resources, provision of needs and sustainable development of the community, changes in the ratio of their income and expenditure components, increase in the budget income per capita.
It is recommended to focus on tools of value-oriented management in the united territorial communities in order to attract investors and increase the financial capacity of local authorities.

The focus of the research is to develop recommendations of smart specialization (SS) for Ukrainian policymakers using European approaches. The authors revealed that the main SS projects are presented in such sectors as agri-food, industrial modernization and energy. More than 12 EU countries were the plot for conducted analysis of SS, as a result of which the level of activity of each country was determined. The creation of consortiums, including SMEs, associations, universities and other participants, disclosed the successful way of SS realization. The structure of SME’s innovative potential in Ukraine was identified underlining their main characteristic features like types of innovations and innovative activity, differentiation according to enterprise size, their regional distribution. The authors explored lack of innovations on regional and national level and significant territorial disparities, which could be eliminated through policy implementation of regional SS. The existing legislative norms for possibility of SS implementation in Ukraine were analyzed due to correspondence with the EU ones. The analysis provides the opportunity to consider them only as general framework documents without any action plans and sectoral prioritization at all. The weak points of these law documents are emphasized. As a result of research, the authors developed recommendations presented by direct action plan for Ukrainian policymakers, which include such activities as underlining key priorities (especially ICT applicability in every SS project) and their correspondence with the EU ones; eliminating regional imbalances by focusing on innovation development and reorientation of some regions according to SS priorities; respecting regional existing capacities; providing organizational mechanism for cooperation of stakeholders and financial mechanism for SS support through the EU structural funds.

In this article, updated approach to assess the impact of fiscal decentralization on economic development is offered. The relationship between the proper level of fiscal decentralization and economic growth for 27 advanced and emerging economies in Europe from 1992 to 2017 was evaluated using panel data. In the EU members, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine expenditures decentralization was more essential than revenue decentralization. The vast majority of the counties from Central and Eastern Europe have increased the level of fiscal decentralization since 1992. It was found that revenue decentralization was associated with lower growth rates, while expenditures decentralization could slightly encourage economic development. The overall decentralization indicator adversely affected the growth, but that interconnection was not robust. The empirical investigation showed significant role of demographic structure and sustainability to ensure economic development. The authors propose the statements for the local authorities to develop the methodical bases of the fiscal policy’s design. In the survey, a balanced approach to the tax and public spending policy’s preparation and planning is presented.